Pythagoreanism meaning

According to Cicero (Timaeus, r), Figulus endeavoured with some success to revive the doctrines of Pythagoreanism.

Both inculcated a peculiar kind of ascetic life; both had a mystical speculative theory of religion, with purificatory rites, abstinence from beans, &c.; but Orphism was more especially religious, while Pythagoreanism, at least originally, inclined more to be a political and philosophical creed.

It is often untrustworthy: Stobaeus betrays a tendency to confound the dogmas of the early Ionic philosophers, and he occasionally mixes up Platonism with Pythagoreanism.

What is more, both Speusippus and Xenocrates founded their own philosophies on this very Pythagoreanism of Plato.

In his early years, however, he was a Pythagorean, and he is one of the most important sources for early Pythagoreanism.